Editing Gorilla (section)

==Scientific study==
American physician and missionary [[Thomas S. Savage|Thomas Staughton Savage]] obtained the first specimens (the skull and other bones) during his time in [[Liberia]].<ref name="Conniff" /> The first scientific description of gorillas dates back to an article by Savage and the naturalist [[Jeffries Wyman]] in 1847 in ''Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Savage |first=T. S. |year=1847 |url=https://archive.org/details/proceedingsbost12histgoog/page/n243 |title=Communication describing the external character and habits of a new species of ''Troglodytes'' (''T. gorilla'') |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504211124/https://books.google.com/books?id=0Hpbwjpr58AC&pg=PA245 |archive-date=4 May 2016 |publisher=Boston Society of Natural History |pages=245–247}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Savage |first1=T. S |last2=Wyman |first2=J. |year=1847 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=crgrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA417 |title=Notice of the external characters and habits of ''Troglodytes gorilla'', a new species of orang from the Gaboon River, osteology of the same |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160520205500/https://books.google.com/books?id=crgrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA417 |archive-date=20 May 2016 |journal=Boston Journal of Natural History |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=417–443}}</ref> where ''Troglodytes gorilla'' is described, now known as the [[western gorilla]]. Other species of gorilla were described in the next few years.<ref name=Groves2002/>
[[File:French explorer Paul du Chaillu at close quarters with a gorilla.jpg|thumb |left |Drawing of French explorer [[Paul Du Chaillu]] at close quarters with a gorilla]]
The explorer [[Paul Du Chaillu]] was the first westerner to see a live gorilla during his travel through western equatorial Africa from 1856 to 1859. He brought dead specimens to the UK in 1861.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=McCook |first=S. |title="It may be truth, but it is not evidence": Paul du Chaillu and the legitimation of evidence in the field sciences |journal=Osiris |volume=11 |year=1996 |pages=177–197 |doi=10.1086/368759 |url=https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/xmlui/bitstream/10214/7693/1/McCook%201996%20Chaillu.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922003828/https://atrium.lib.uoguelph.ca/xmlui/bitstream/10214/7693/1/McCook%201996%20Chaillu.pdf |archive-date=2017-09-22 |url-status=live |hdl=10214/7693 |s2cid=143950182 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://museumsvictoria.com.au/history/gorillas.html |title=A history of Museum Victoria: Melbourne 1865: Gorillas at the museum |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080227141432/http://museumvictoria.com.au/history/gorillas.html |archive-date=27 February 2008 |publisher=Museum Victoria |access-date=27 September 2011}}</ref><ref name="NYT-20130404">{{Cite news |last1=Quammen |first1=D. |title=Book review: Planet of the ape - 'Between man and beast |first2=M. |last2=Reel |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/books/review/between-man-and-beast-by-monte-reel.html |date=4 April 2013 |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=6 April 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130406181545/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/07/books/review/between-man-and-beast-by-monte-reel.html |archive-date=6 April 2013}}</ref>

The first systematic study was not conducted until the 1920s, when [[Carl Akeley]] of the [[American Museum of Natural History]] traveled to Africa to hunt for an animal to be shot and stuffed. On his first trip, he was accompanied by his friends [[Mary Bradley (writer)|Mary Bradley]], a mystery writer, her husband, and their young daughter Alice, who would later write science fiction under the pseudonym [[James Tiptree Jr.]] After their trip, Mary Bradley wrote ''On the Gorilla Trail''. She later became an advocate for the conservation of gorillas, and wrote several more books (mainly for children). In the late 1920s and early 1930s, [[Robert Yerkes]] and his wife Ava helped further the study of gorillas when they sent Harold Bigham to Africa. Yerkes also wrote a book in 1929 about the great apes.

After [[World War II]], [[George Schaller]] was one of the first researchers to go into the field and study primates. In 1959, he conducted a systematic study of the mountain gorilla in the wild and published his work. Years later, at the behest of [[Louis Leakey]] and the ''[[National Geographic Society|National Geographic]]'', [[Dian Fossey]] conducted a much longer and more comprehensive study of the mountain gorilla. When she published her work, many misconceptions and myths about gorillas were finally disproved, including the myth that gorillas are violent.

[[Western lowland gorilla]]s (''G. g. gorilla'') are believed to be one of the [[zoonotic]] origins of [[HIV/AIDS]]. The SIVgor [[Simian immunodeficiency virus]] that infects them is similar to a certain strain of HIV-1.<ref name=VanHeuv>{{cite journal |last1=Van Heuverswyn |first1=F. |last2=Li |first2=Y. |last3=Neel |first3=C. |display-authors=3 |last4=Bailes |first4=E. |last5=Keele |first5=B. F. |last6=Liu |first6=W. |last7=Loul |first7=S. |last8=Butel |first8=C. |last9=Liegeois |first9=F. |last10=Bienvenue |first10=Y. |last11=Ngolle |first11=E. M. |last12=Sharp |first12=P. M. |last13=Shaw |first13=G. M. |last14=Delaporte |first14=E. |last15=Hahn |first15=B. H. |last16=Peeters |first16=M. |title=Human immunodeficiency viruses: SIV infection in wild gorillas |journal=Nature |volume=444 |issue=7116 |page=164 |year=2006 |pmid=17093443 |doi=10.1038/444164a |bibcode=2006Natur.444..164V |s2cid=27475571 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name=Plantier>{{cite journal |last1=Plantier |first1=J. |last2=Leoz |first2=M. |last3=Dickerson |first3=J. E. |display-authors=3 |last4=De Oliveira |first4=F. |last5=Cordonnier |first5=F. |last6=Lemée |first6=V. |last7=Damond |first7=F. |last8=Robertson |first8=David L |last9=Simon |first9=F. |title=A new human immunodeficiency virus derived from gorillas |journal=Nature Medicine |volume=15 |pages=871–872 |year=2009 |doi=10.1038/nm.2016 |pmid=19648927 |issue=8 |s2cid=76837833 }}</ref><ref name=Sharp2001>{{cite journal |last1=Sharp |first1=P. M. |last2=Bailes |first2=E. |last3=Chaudhuri |first3=R. R. |last4=Rodenburg |first4=C. M. |last5=Santiago |first5=M. O. |last6=Hahn |first6=B. H. |title=The origins of acquired immune deficiency syndrome viruses: where and when? |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |volume=356 |pages=867–876 |year=2001 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2001.0863 |pmid=11405934 |pmc=1088480 |issue=1410}}</ref><ref name=Takebe2008>{{cite book |last1=Takebe |first1=Y. |last2=Uenishi |first2=R. |last3=Li |first3=X. |title=HIV-1: Molecular biology and pathogenesis |volume=56 |pages=1–25 |year=2008 |doi=10.1016/S1054-3589(07)56001-1 |pmid=18086407 |chapter=Global molecular epidemiology of HIV: Understanding the genesis of AIDS pandemic |series=Advances in Pharmacology |isbn=978-0123736017}}</ref>

=== Genome sequencing ===
The gorilla became the next-to-last great ape genus to have its genome sequenced. The first gorilla genome was generated with short read and Sanger sequencing using DNA from a female western lowland gorilla named Kamilah. This gave scientists further insight into the evolution and origin of humans. Despite the chimpanzees being the closest extant relatives of humans, 15% of the human genome was found to be more like that of the gorilla.<ref>{{Cite news |first=K. |last=Kelland |date=7 March 2012 |title=Gorilla genome sheds new light on human evolution |newspaper=Reuters |access-date=8 March 2012 |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gorilla-genome-sheds-new-light-human-idUSTRE8261VA20120307 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308012545/http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/07/us-gorilla-genome-sheds-new-light-human-idUSTRE8261VA20120307 |archive-date=8 March 2012}}</ref> In addition, 30% of the gorilla genome "is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other; this is rarer around coding genes, indicating pervasive selection throughout great ape evolution, and has functional consequences in gene expression."<ref>{{cite journal |first1=A. |last1=Scally |display-authors=3 |year=2012 |title=Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence |journal=Nature |volume=483 |pages=169–175 |doi=10.1038/nature10842 |pmid=22398555 |issue=7388 |pmc=3303130 |bibcode=2012Natur.483..169S |last2=Dutheil |first2=J. Y. |last3=Hillier |first3=L. W. |last4=Jordan |first4=G. E. |last5=Goodhead |first5=I. |last6=Herrero |first6=J. |last7=Hobolth |first7=A. |last8=Lappalainen |first8=T. |last9=Mailund |first9=T. |last10=Marques-Bonet |first10=T. |last11=McCarthy |first11=S. |last12=Montgomery |first12=S. H. |last13=Schwalie |first13=P. C. |last14=Tang |first14=Y. A. |last15=Ward |first15=M. C. |last16=Xue |first16=Y. |last17=Yngvadottir |first17=B. |last18=Alkan |first18=C. |last19=Andersen |first19=L. N. |last20=Ayub |first20=Q. |last21=Ball |first21=E. V. |last22=Beal |first22=K. |last23=Bradley |first23=B. J. |last24=Chen |first24=Y. |last25=Clee |first25=C. M. |last26=Fitzgerald |first26=S. |last27=Graves |first27=T. A. |last28=Gu |first28=Y. |last29=Heath |first29=P. |last30=Heger |first30=A. |url=https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:32177/ATTACHMENT01 |hdl=10261/80788}}</ref> Analysis of the gorilla genome has cast doubt on the idea that the rapid evolution of hearing genes gave rise to language in humans, as it also occurred in gorillas.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=K. |date=7 March 2012 |title=Gorilla joins the genome club |journal=Nature |url=http://www.nature.com/news/gorilla-joins-the-genome-club-1.10185 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120309060208/http://www.nature.com/news/gorilla-joins-the-genome-club-1.10185 |archive-date=9 March 2012 |doi=10.1038/nature.2012.10185 |s2cid=85141639|doi-access=free }}</ref>

[[File:Gorillas in Ueno Zoo - 2009 Aug.webm|thumb|Several western lowland gorillas in captivity in [[Japan]], 2009]]